Ecuador foreign minister says decision on asylum for Snowden could take months

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Ecuador's foreign minister says his government could take months to decide whether to grant asylum to fugitive U.S. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino compared Snowden's case to that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been given asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Patino told a news conference in Malaysia that Ecuador took "two months to make a decision in the case of Assange, so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time."